


The Colors of Justin Foley

by IceMage4739



Category: 13 reasons why - Fandom
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I just want them to be okay, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Soulmate AU, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 21:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceMage4739/pseuds/IceMage4739
Summary: In a world where everything bursts into color when you first see your soulmate, Justin Foley is trying to make sense of everything.There were a lot of different endings for this, but I chose the happier one.Follows the same timeline as the show.





	The Colors of Justin Foley

**Author's Note:**

> Italics are flashbacks, and then there's a jump in time where the "~ ~ ~" is. Hope you enjoy! (This is my first fic for this show, and this ship, and I just love them so much)

~The Colors Of Justin Foley~

 

_Shades of gray, Justin had decided, were completely boring. For seventeen years, it was all he saw, and he was so sick of the dullness that came with black and white and in-betweens. He still remembers the day that his world burst into color, and he saw everything he’d secretly been pining for._

_A girl walked through the door of the school, and the first color he saw was a shade of blue. It was on the sweater of the boy who walked next to her, but he wasn’t paying much attention to it. His eyes settled in on her hair, locking with her eyes, and he gave her a little smirk as she walked by._

_She was the one, she had to be. The only problem was she was walking next to the one and only Hannah Baker, who happened to hate his guts._

 

“Foley!” Bryce pushed his shoulder, breaking him from his thoughts. Justin shoved him back- harder than he’d probably meant to, but lately, he couldn’t hide his anger, and, whether he wanted to admit it or not, hatred, for the boy anymore.

“Fuck off, Walker,” he fired back, taking a drink of the beer that he didn’t quite realize was in his hand until it hit his lips. “You fuck off, man, you lost us the game cause you were so out of it,” Bryce responded, throwing his remote onto the table and getting up.

“Whatever, I’m going home,” Justin threw his own remote down next to him, standing up.

Bryce raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the couch. “You’re not staying here?”

The very idea made him sick. “No,” he said, too quickly. “I, uh, have homework,” he lied. They both knew it was a lame excuse, but Bryce let it go.

Justin turned to the group of boys that stood around the kitchen, talking. His eyes flickered amongst the faces- lingering for an unnoticeable moment on one of them, a small boy with bleach blonde hair and blue, blue eyes- until he found the person he was looking for. “Dempsey, can I get a ride?”

Zach looked up, then shrugged. “Yeah, I was just heading out. Where you going?”

Justin shrugged, an attempt at looking nonchalant. “Home.”

 

_Justin wasn’t going to lie. When the girl- who’s name was Jessica, as he soon learned- and her boyfriend- Alex, who he more or less befriended in an attempt to meet Jessica- broke up, he was over the moon. He finally stood a chance with the girl who caused him to see color._

_He liked her chocolate eyes, even though they were sad. He liked them because when she laughed, they lit up, and he wanted to make her feel like that all the time._

_Alex, who had somewhat become his friend, didn’t seem so good afterwards, so he kind of felt bad, but not bad enough to stop himself from dating her._

_But no matter how close he got to Jessica, something was wrong. They were supposed to get brighter, shine more than the sun, that’s what people said, right? The closer he seemed to get with Jessica- the colors dulled. Not so much they were ugly, just, less intense. Sad, almost._

 

The car was calming as Justin laid his head against the window, watching the lights pass in a blur of reds and yellows and blues.

Zach looked over at him nervously. “Dude, are you okay?”

Justin refrained from rolling his eyes. _Is anyone okay?_ his head screamed at him, but he just murmured, “Yeah, fine.”

 

_“I know it’s not really something you like to talk about-” he began one day, holding Jessica in his arms._

_Jessica pushed him away a little, rolling her eyes in annoyance. “What is it, Justin?”_

_He took a deep breath, staring into the chocolate eyes. “The colors?”_

_She stood up, pulling her shirt back over her head. He heard the frustration in her voice before she even spoke. “I told you, Justin. I love you but I don’t see anything. Someday, maybe?”_

_He shook his head, lighting a pipe and inhaling the smoke._

 

He climbed the steps to his apartment slowly, trying to find some safety in the rhythm that came with each step. He didn’t want to come home, he didn’t want to be anywhere else, he didn’t want to be at all. He wished the tapes had never happened- he wished Hannah Baker was alive. He knew his reasons were selfish, to lift the weight that seemed to be sitting on his shoulders. But, God, he wished she was alive. He fucked up, he knew it, and he knew he’d be paying for it- regretting it- for the rest of his life.

He unlocked his apartment as quietly as he could, trying to slip in without being noticed. Maybe, if they didn’t notice him, he could just go to bed and stop fucking _thinking_.

 

_When he first heard the tapes, he was pissed._

_Not at her- no, he felt bad for her, deep down. But he was pissed. He didn’t know if it was at himself, the existence of the tapes, or that she was on them._

_He had to fucking pass this on- and to her? Then, then it would be going on to Alex. He denied the pull of his gut when he pictured him getting the tapes, listening and hating Justin. Listening and hating himself._

_Justin shook his head furiously. He was going to throw the damn things away. He’d made it outside, holding the shoe box above the garbage, when he saw Tony, watching him._

_It took him a long moment, but it clicked, and he was pissed all over again. He walked back inside, flipping the red mustang off as he went, and sat down, scribbling Jessica’s name on the box instead._

 

He shut the door behind him carefully, heading straight for his room.

“Justin, is that you?” the small voice of his mother came from the living room.

He froze in the hallway, glancing in her direction. She was laying on the couch, with that asshole. His fist clenched automatically at the thought, but he swallowed his anger. “Uh, yeah. I was just with a friend.” When he didn’t hear an answer, he assumed she just didn’t give a shit, and continued to his room.

 

_He remembered Jessica crying, breaking down, hitting his arm, grasping for something to hold onto. She was so lost, screaming at him. “Is it true? Is it fucking true?”_

_He swallowed the tears threatening him, grabbing her fists. “No, no, it’s not, you have to believe me, Jess.”_

_The words spilled out of his mouth before he gave them the permission to. His stomach dropped, but he forced himself to look into her eyes. Chocolate. She cried, but seemed to lose the energy to fight, and he just held her, hating himself._

 

The ceiling of his room was bare. He wasn’t the cliche type who wanted stars on his ceiling or anything- that’d be stupid, and he’d never hear the end of it, but the white, blankness of the wall depressed him. He hated it. He forced his eyes closed just so he didn’t have to look at it.

 

_The thing he didn’t understand was the fading of the colors. They were the same as they always were throughout the entire time Jessica had the tapes, but, one night after she mailed them off, with his help and a red mustang watching, the colors seemed to blink. Into existence, out. Then back, but faded. Like when you leave your favorite red shirt and the sun, and it’s never the same again._

_He fought it off, ignoring it._

_Alex had the tapes. He was probably listening to them at this moment, hearing what Justin had done._

 

His stomach clenched, in sadness or regret or anger, he didn’t know, at the memory. He hated feeling like this- he hated feeling- so he shoved it away, and turned over to go to sleep.

 

~ ~ ~

 

_Why Alex had agreed to let him stay at his house, he had no idea. He didn’t deserve his kindness, and he knew it. In retrospect, maybe coming to Alex was a bad idea. Not that he didn’t want to be here, he did, but he knew Alex wasn’t entirely fond of him, and he was dating the girl that he was in love with._

_Nevertheless, Alex had allowed him into his house, laid out enough blankets on the floor of his room that Justin could barely tell that there was even a floor there anymore, then fed him. He was grateful, not that he’d ever show it; most of his dignity had been spent on practically begging to stay here._

_That wasn’t the part that scared him the most, though. It was that the second Alex had let him in, stepped aside and showed him to his room, the colors were brighter than they’d been in weeks. Suddenly, blue wasn’t that of old jeans or bruises, it was the sky on a cloudless day again, and he wanted it to last._

_Then he got the phonecall from Jess._

 

He was walking away. Physically, he was walking away from Bryce, and his house that was never a home, his mother that was never a mom.

Metaphorically, he was walking away from everything.

 

_Despite that one incident, that still gave him shivers to think about, Alex was a relatively good driver. He still drove quickly over to Bryce’s, but well within the speed limit._

_Justin couldn’t help but stare as he drove, watching the boy’s eyes. So blue, fixed on the road. His face still had strings of red from the fight with Montgomery, a fight that had left Justin sick to his stomach, wanting nothing more than to pull the bigger boy off of Alex._

_He remembered only standing by and watching._

_Alex’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel, and his jaw was clenched. When he noticed Justin staring, he shot him a quick glance. “What is it, Foley?” he questioned, tone tired, but not unkind._

_Justin shook his head, tearing his eyes away from him. “It’s nothing.”_

_“Justin...” Alex’s voice trailed off._

_“What is it?” Justin asked, refusing to acknowledge the slight quickening of his heart._

_“It’s- it’s nothing.”_

_“No, it’s not Standall, what is it?” Justin’s voice was demanding and stern, and he couldn’t help but notice the way Alex flinched away from it._

_“It’s- your neck,” he finally spits out, looking at him again. His eyes linger down his face and settle under his chin. “What happened?”_

_Justin unconsciously reached up, fingers lightly dancing over the skin there. The image of his mom’s boyfriend’s face so close to his, murky eyes of hatred. Nails digging into him, and he struggled for air. “It’s nothing, Standall. Don’t worry about it.”_

 

Even before the tapes had shown up at his door, Justin knew it would come down to this, leaving. He’s barely been able to look Bryce in the eye since Jessica’s party. Every time he saw him, bile rose in his throat, and a blinding rage came over him. He wanted to punch him, but then the fear from that night would sweep over him all over again, and he would stop, and plaster on a fake smile.

He was so tired.

He couldn’t fake anymore.

And he couldn’t go home, not that there was much of one to return to anyways. Admittedly, his heart ached for Alex’s room, the coolness and tranquility of the night he’d stayed there. The soft comfort in knowing he was not hopelessly alone. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

 

_“Because he fucking raped you!” His own words kept echoing in his head. He choked down the sob that threatened to rise, and angrily wiped his eyes._

_His eyes flickered over to where Alex was sitting next to him, silently, and he sighed, his heart breaking all over again. “You shouldn’t have let me come back with you,” he said, voicing the thought that had been running through him ever since he got back into the car._

_Alex shrugged. “The damage was already done,” he responded. For the first time since they’d arrived back in his room, Alex met his eyes, searching. “You did the right thing tonight.”_

_“She hates me.”_

_“Yeah,” Alex agreed, then went quiet. His gaze once again fell to Justin’s neck, the light bruises currently forming there, and his eyes darkened. He reached out a hand, and Justin unconsciously flinched, shrinking back. “I’m sorry,” Alex said, his voice barely a whisper, but he didn’t pull his hand back. He continued to reach forward, and Justin didn’t attempt to stop him, just watched his blue eyes. They were focused, and sad._

_Alex’s fingers fell, ever so gently, over one of the bruises on Justin’s next, drifting over it._

_Red. Alex had a bright red poster on his wall. Did it get brighter?_

_His fingers were cold, but it felt good over his skin, and they traced each bruise with a gentleness he’d never known._

_Green. Alex had little green stars stuck to his ceiling, and Justin wondered just how long they’d been there, if they still shone._

_Alex’s fingers roamed upwards, lightly, and just barely touched his cheek. Justin hadn’t realized he’d released a tear. Funny thing was, he couldn’t quite remember why he was crying. His heart pounded as Alex’s hand cupped his cheek, and Justin allowed himself to lean into his hand, just a little. His hand fell away then, and he turned his head so that Justin couldn’t read his face._

_Blue. Alex’s eyes had lit up, and now they were turned away._

_“We should go to bed,” Alex muttered._

_When they were laying in their respective beds, Alex turned out the light, and Justin’s eyes instantly found the ceiling._

_Alex’s stars still shined- just barely._

 

He’d come to terms with leaving this town. Even after the desperate rush to pick up the broken pieces of his and Jessica’s relationship, he knew it had been over for a while. They were just holding on because they were scared of falling. He loved her, he knew that, but it had to be over.

Yes, he’d come to terms with leaving this town, but as he walked, staring at the cracks in the sidewalks, his heart found itself in a different place entirely; a room that still had little green stars plastered to the ceiling, and cool fingers dancing on the bruises of his neck.

Justin swallowed, angry at himself for thinking like that. He could never- he would never- he shook his head. No.

 

_“Alex?” Justin whispered into the dark, eyes still fixed on the stars._

_The figure up on the bed rustled, but Justin knew he hadn’t woken him up. “Go to sleep, Foley,” Alex sighed._

_“Do you see them?” Justin blurted the question that had bloomed and his mind and refused to leave._

_The rustling froze, and there was a long moment of silence. “See what?”_

_“The colors,” he responded. The words barely left his lips, and he wasn’t entirely sure they’d even come out at all, but Alex knew what he was talking about._

_Again, another long pause, and then, a broken murmur, “Yes, Justin, I do.”_

_“Oh,” was all Justin responded with. He couldn’t ask ‘who?’, not because it would be rude, but because a part of him couldn’t stand it, Alex’s hand on someone else’s cheek, so soft and gentle. “Which one is your favorite?” he asked instead._

_There was a bitter laugh from Alex, and then, “Green. Yours?”_

_All the different colors flickered through his mind. Purple, red, yellow, until he stopped, on eyes. “Blue.”_

_They laid in silence after that, both of them pretending to be asleep._

 

His footsteps carried him farther away with each second, but they ached to go back. He found himself kicking rocks, just to watch them tumble, and then he found himself cursing.

Cursing Bryce, cursing those tapes, cursing those eyes, cursing the colors, cursing himself.

What good was it anyways? The colors have never fucking made sense to him. The whole ‘your world will light up when you first see your soulmate’ thing was totally bullshit. It had to be. Jessica never even saw anything, and the fading and brightness of colors had never pertained to her, it always seemed to follow-

He froze.

Alex Standall.

 

_He still remembers the day that his world burst into color, and he saw everything he’d secretly been pining for. A boy walked through the door of the school, Jessica walking next to him, and the first color he saw was a shade of blue. It was on the sweater of the boy and it mimicked those of his eyes, and he should’ve paid more attention to it. He wished he’d seen those eyes from the start._

 

He was expecting some sort of beautiful revelation, everything brighter than it was before, something new, anything, but instead, a deep feeling of wrongness and fear settled within him.

The colors began to crack. The sky flickered to gray, then back to a dull blue, then gray again. The grass began to look like concrete, and the flowers of a nearby bush turned to dust.

Something was seriously wrong.

He turned, and he began to run, faster than he even thought he could. He held onto the feeling of Alex’s hand against his cheek, desperate to feel it again, no matter the consequences. He wanted to hold him, tell him it was okay.

By the time he got to Alex’s house, the colors were almost completely gone, but he held onto the flickers. A little bit of sky, a little yellow flower, his jacket.

He repeatedly on the door, but when he didn’t get an answer, he slammed himself against it, over and over, until his arm ached so much it went numb, and then he rammed into the door one more time. In a spur of desperation, he tried the knob, and the door flew open.

Following his memory, he found Alex’s room, throwing open the closed door, finding Alex sitting on his bed, staring at the shining gun in his hand, half way to his head.

“Alex,” Justin breathed, because that’s all he could do, heart hammering in his chest.

Fear flashed in Alex’s eyes, and Justin didn’t think he’d ever seen them so dull- not even when everything else was fading. But he held onto that color, because it was the last he could see.

Alex shook his head, tears slipping down his face now. “Justin- what are you doing here?”

Justin crossed the room in a heartbeat, and kneeled down in front of Alex, staring into his eyes. He didn’t try to reach for the gun, just hesitantly rested his hand over Alex’s, carefully working his finger away from the trigger. “Alex,” he repeated, his voice cracking. He didn’t know what else to say, and Alex’s eyes kept refilling with tears.

“Justin, please, I don’t want you to see,” Alex whispered.

“Alex, no, please,” he cried, and he felt himself crying, too. He reached his other hand up, and his fingertips lightly drifted over Alex’s neck, mimicking the way Alex had just a few nights ago. Alex stiffened, then relaxed a little, and Justin finally rested his hand on his cheek, thumb brushing away the tears. “How long have you known?”

Alex cried again, but he looked into Justin’s eyes. “Since I first saw you, I guess. Your eyes. Green,” he choked out.

Justin felt everything give away. “Blue,” he said, and it was the only thing he was even sure about anymore. “You’re my color.”

He leaned up, pressing the smallest of kisses on Alex’s lips, tasting the salt of his tears, but it didn’t matter. He pulled away, and the color of the room began to appear again, slowly, and not entirely, but it was there. Justin’s hand tightened around Alex’s. “Please.”

Alex loosened his grip, and Justin’s hands were on the gun immediately, pulling it from him, and setting it on the floor, as far away from Alex as he could get it.

Alex slumped forward, all the strength he’d been faking leaving, and he rested his head in the crook of Justin’s neck, and he cried. Justin pulled him into his arms, his fingertips stroking his hair, and told him it would be okay.


End file.
